Sacrifice of Fools
Ian McDonald
286 pages
published in 1995

I started reading this on a whim, because it was lying next to my bed and I wanted to kill some time. Next thing I know it was an hour later..

Ian McDonald is a relatively new writer for me, previously having read only a few of his short stories scattered in various Year's Best anthologies. Sacrifice of Fools is the first novel of his I've read. I found it to be better then expected.

Sacrifice of Fools is a hardboiled murder mystery set in near future Northern Ireland, a few years after the alien Shai contacted us from orbit around Jupiter. Coincidently or not, Northern Ireland is also finally at peace, under the Joint Sovereignity of Ireland and the UK.

Three years ago, on the day the Shai announced their presence, this was not the case. That day Andy Gillespie was the driver for a Loyalist hit squad during a bungled hit on a local Belfast drug dealer. Caught, sentenced and sent to the Maze, then released as part of the peace program, Andy now works for the Shian Welcome Centre In Belfast. During his time in prison he somehow learned to speak their language and has become fascinated by the Shai, so it seemed natural to go work for them. He's happy in his job and is accepted by his employers, the Harridi family as part of their family.

And then they are brutally murdered and Andy's the main suspect. But the Harridis are not the only ones being murdered, as certain Loyalist leaders also turn up dead soon after. There's a serial killer of some sort lose and Andy finds it's his duty to bring him or her to justice. This requires him to become a genro, a sort of knight-advocate and to delve deep into the Shian's psychology, biology and history. At the same time the police, mostly in the person of detective sergeant Roisin Dunbar is following their own investigations and there's also a mysterious Shian getting involved.

One of the more challenging aspects of writing science fiction is creating believable, truly alien aliens, without falling into stereotypes and broad generalisations or making them totally incomprehensible. I think Ian McDonald for the most part succeeded in doing so. The Shian are more then humans in drag. They may look not all that different from us, their biology and their sociology is different, yet still comprehensible. They rang true, though at a few points they were a bit too generic eastern mystical for me.

This is as far as I know the first sf novel set in Northern Ireland I've read, which made it extra interesting. McDonald has a good sense of place and it's clear he knows Northern Ireland well. Not just the geography, but also the history and political situation there, going beyond the usual cliches of "the troubles".

The plot is strong, the denouncement satisfying and surprising without being totally out of left field and the characters, especially Andy are quite well realised. I'm going to look out for more of McDonald's work.